11.07.2014

Helmholtz Fellow Hesheng Chen guest at DESY

Today, DESY welcomes Chinese scientist Professor Hesheng Chen who starts the first of two periods of research in Hamburg. The renowned particle physicist Chen, who among others was Director General of the Institute of High Energy Physics in Beijing, recently won a Helmholtz International Fellow Award by the Helmholtz Association, supporting the research stays at DESY. He participated in pioneering experiments, such as MARK-J, AMS and Daya Bay. “It is my pleasure to welcome Hesheng Chen once again, a particle physicist of international reputation and a good friend of DESY,” said DESY Research Director Joachim Mnich. “Hesheng is not only a driving force in the current Chinese particle physics initiative to join the world league, he is also a perfect ambassador of DESY’s good relations with our Chinese partners.”

Joachim Mnich welcomes Hesheng Chen in the CMS remote centre.

Hesheng Chen did research at DESY already at the beginning of his scientific career. In one of the first scientific collaborations of DESY and China, he worked as a team member of Nobel Prize winner Samuel Ting in the MARK-J experiment at the PETRA storage ring. MARK-J was one of the four PETRA experiments which detected the gluon, the messenger particle of the strong force. After working in the United States, he was appointed professor at the Institute of High Energy Physics (IHEP) in Beijing and later became its director. Cheng, now head of the Beijing Electron Positron Collider National Laboratory, in his last position was leading the construction and operation of the Daya Bay experiment. This experiment carried out in China recently caused a sensation in the world of particle physics: With neutrinos from a reactor, extremely precise measurements allowed to determine the final and yet unknown so-called neutrino mixing angle, a measure of the frequency of neutrino oscillations between various types of neutrinos. With these precision experiments, Daya Bay provided the basis for the future direction of international neutrino research.

At DESY, Hesheng Chen will support the Higgs analyses of the CMS research group and in particular share his experience with the Chinese research groups’ parallel analysis activities. Discussions about the future of global accelerator and particle physics, and starting points of future cooperation with Chinese institutes will also be an issue. A first cooperation has already been determined: Within the framework of a Helmholtz China Joint Research Group; as from November, the Chinese scientist Ye Chen will do research at DESY.

The International Fellow Awards are presented annually to outstanding scientists with the purpose to enhance the networking of Helmholtz research centres with excellent international partners. The awards are endowed with 20 000 euros and entitle the winner to conduct research stays at a Helmholtz research centre.